Wednesday, July 3, 2013

So how are the crape myrtles doing, subsequent to my switching two of them around last fall?

Well, the one-that's-supposed-to-be-a-Bayou-Marie-but-isn't is doing fine in its new location down next to the step. It's got fat bright-reddish buds on it and looks ready to burst into bloom any day now.

The one-that's-supposed-to-be-a-Pixie-White-but-isn't is still making up its mind what it's going to do. Or maybe it's sulking at having been dug out and moved to the top of the patch. At any rate, though its wood is green it still hasn't broken dormancy. I read online about a crape myrtle that didn't start leafing out again until the August after it was transplanted, so I'm giving mine time.

One of the New Orleans specimens is doing quite well, thank you. I anticipate flowers from it very soon.

However. However. The other New Orleans is not doing as well. You could say it has suffered from a disadvantage. Don't know how I didn't notice it before, but it is tiny compared to its mate planted at the same time. The latter has completely overshadowed it.

So to give it a chance and to fill out my new front garden bed a little more, this afternoon I dug it up and moved it to the opposite corner of the lower plot, by the west entrance to the path. Yes, I know autumn would have been a better time. But the late great gardener Christopher Lloyd liked to say that the best time to do anything in the garden is when you're thinking about it and you have the time. Besides, how was it going to survive all summer under there?

Took longer than I'd imagined. Crape myrtle roots go deep, but I couldn't dig to the extent of them since this one's roots were so tangled up with those of its companions. And then the hole I dug for it was full of rocks at a comparable high level. Afraid for a minute there I couldn't get enough dirt out of it to get the shrub in.